Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1187: Chapter 1186: "Famous Quotes

Dirty clouds cover the scorched and decayed land. For seven centuries, the valleys, plains, hills, and basins have been soaked in high-intensity chaotic magic radiation, haunted by shadows of the perished and terrifyingly twisted monsters. Frenzied, chaotic winds pass through gaps between jagged, grim rock pillars and loose rock faces, stirring up a low, wailing hum across the land, mingled with a certain pungent smell—the scent of magic decomposing the air.

Deep within the Gondor Empire, over a hundred kilometers from the explosion crater at the Well of Deep Blue, a "base" formed by entangled boulders and twisted giant trees lies quietly dormant among the mountains.

Dark brown vines meander through the mountain walls on both sides, forming a web-like structure above the valley. Thorny branches extend from the vines, further fragmenting the already dark and ominous sky. Under the web of thorns, the valley is scattered with boulders linked by vines and thorns, creating structures reminiscent of giant ramparts. Numerous wood-structured "pipes" stretch out from nearby mountains, channeling precious underground water into the valley’s intricate and carefully designed water network.

This is a territory that appears eerie and terrifying to creatures outside the wasteland, but for the twisted beings deep within it, this is the most comfortable sanctuary, the most suitable habitat.

Countless bizarre human-faced giant trees and controlled aberrations operate in this "habitat," using it as their base, slowly expanding their influence beyond the valley.

At the center of the valley lies a vast area, with a massive opening left in the thorny dome overhead, allowing the somewhat dim light to seep into this eerie place. On a circle of high platforms surrounding the open space, several dry, twisted human-faced giant trees stand atop boulders, silently overlooking a spiraling pit below. A ghostly blue arcane magic radiance bursts from the pit, reflecting on their parched, mutated faces.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the treant leader spoke, his voice like dry wood creaking in the air: "Is this the vein flowing through our planet... truly beautiful like blood vessels, with vast magic power flowing inside like blood..."

"Ah, our esteemed Archbishop still has such a poetic side..." a young female voice came from behind the treant leader, followed by another almost identical voice beside the first, "Unfortunately, there are no poets in this desolate valley—nor are there any poems worth singing."

The treant leader, known as the "Archbishop," turned around, his wooden body emitting crackling sounds, his hazel eyes fixed on the elven twins ascending the platform from behind: "Are you always this carefree?"

"We’re busy with many things, it’s just that you can’t always see them," Fyrna said with a smile, followed by Lelena speaking beside her, "Our diligence mostly involves mental labor—it certainly doesn’t look as busy as those aberrations moving stone blocks and carving channels in and out of the valley."

The treant leader seemed accustomed to the elven twins’ subtly challenging, infuriating manner of speaking. He merely snorted and withdrew his gaze, turning back to focus on the deep pit below the platform.

The pit clearly bore signs of artificial excavation, with a diameter exceeding a hundred meters. Around its edge, neat black stones were stacked, their surfaces shining with magic symbols. Countless complex and mysterious magical lines delineated a powerful magic array long lost in this era. Underneath this ring of "stone circle," the pit walls twisted downwards like a vortex, stretching several dozen meters downwards to the nightmarish "pit bottom"—

There, rock and soil seem to abruptly end. No solid ground can be seen, only endless streams of blue flames flowing freely in a void space.

Soil and rock abruptly cease there, and the pit bottom appears to lead to an infinite vastness, evoking an illusion that beneath the feet of all beings, the planet consists only of this thin outer shell, with this pit piercing through, revealing the hollow structure within—the countless blue flame streams forming a crisscrossing network, as the treant leader mentioned, they resemble interwoven blood vessels.

But this vision of the "planet’s hollow" is merely a visual illusion—of course, the planet’s interior is not hollow, nor could this mere hundred-meter-diameter pit penetrate the planet’s crust. The scenes at the bottom are merely magical projections of "fissures," with its environment resembling more of a portal entrance, presenting that... which mortal races cannot directly access—the magical web.

This is the true essence deep within the Well of Deep Blue, deeply embedded in the lower layer of the real world, the "vein" flowing through the entire planet.

"Such immense magic flowing within the Deep Blue Webway, connecting all realms of this planet, exchanging colossal energy..." the treant leader gazed at the pit bottom for a long time, then spoke in a deep voice, "Almost like the ’source’ of magic..."

"Those unaware of the truth may indeed fall into such illusion when viewing the essence of the Deep Blue Webway, mistakenly regard the mere planetary magic circuit as the source of all magic in the world—just like short-sighted insects crawling onto a blade of grass, thinking they’ve reached the ends of the earth," Fyrna shook her head, followed by Lelena shaking hers, "But this is ultimately shallow understanding; magic originates from stars and sub-stellar objects like our sun, it’s the shallow chant emitted by those vast ancient celestial bodies within the ocean of the universe—with the ripples from stars, compared to those, the Well of Deep Blue on our planet..."

The elven twins laughed lightly, their sweet smiles tinged with a hint of sarcasm: "Are merely puddles shimmering in the sunlight, reflecting sunlight hence shining brilliantly, but before the eternal sun, would evaporate and disappear in just a moment."

The treant leader’s gaze fell on the sweetly smiling elven twins, his hazel eyes unmoving as if frozen, after a long pause, he broke the silence: "Sometimes I truly wonder, just where does this mysterious knowledge of yours come from... Don’t tell me it’s some ancient elven legacy or Gondor Empire’s secret data, I lived through the Gondor Era, and visited many places in the Silver Empire. Though not claiming to comprehend all knowledge in the world, I can at least confirm... much of what you know doesn’t come from fields mortals have ever touched."

"Does this question matter?" Fyrna tilted her head lightly, "Ultimately, the truth of the knowledge we brought is proven, and you have greatly benefited from it..."

"We accurately determined the location of another ’vein’ within the Gondor Empire territory," Lelena also tilted her head lightly, "And guided how you siphon energy from the Well of Deep Blue, to activate this vein..."

The elven twins smiled simultaneously, speaking in unison: "We’ve always been wholeheartedly assisting—unfortunately, you seem to harbor countless doubts and caution."

The treant leader stared at the smiling elven twins, from his woodenized body came an unhappy snort: "Hmm, your mysterious speaking style and annoying fake smiles only make me more suspicious... Wasn’t there anyone who ever taught you how to speak properly?"

"Okay, if that’s what you request," the elven twins spoke in unison, "Then we can converse with you in a more serious manner in the future."

"...No, never mind," the treant leader, recalling something with a disgusted tone, shook his dry treetop, "Imagining you speaking seriously... is just too disgusting."

The Elven Twins seemed completely indifferent to such a sharp critique; they simply turned their heads with smiles and their gaze fell on the pit at the bottom of the platform, watching the "Deep Blue Webway" constantly flowing in another dimension. After a few seconds, they suddenly spoke: "We must remind you, Archbishop Bolken, that your last endeavor was too risky. Although actions taken in the elemental world do not attract ’attention’ from the real world and the gods and won’t disturb the ancient ghost parasitizing the server matrix deep in the wastelands, the elemental world has its own rules... The troubles in there aren’t easier to deal with than those guys outside the walls."

"...There is no need for your reminder, I know what I am doing," the treant leader responded coldly, "We need more parameters from the Deep Blue Webway to determine the optimal control nodes. We have already delayed too much time on this step, and taking a little risk is entirely worthwhile to break through this barrier."

"Alright, since you are so confident, we won’t say much more," the Elven Twins shook their heads, and Lelena added, "However, we still need to specially remind you—the nodes opened in this webway are not safe, under no circumstances should you try to extract anything directly from these streams... almost eighty percent of them flow towards the Well of Deep Blue at the center of the Old Empire, that ghost parasitizing the server matrix... although she may have declined somewhat, she still controls the most powerful ’tributaries’."

"Don’t worry, I’ll be cautious, we haven’t reached a ’desperate’ stage yet."

Archbishop Bolken left this remark with a slightly stiff tone, then began to wriggle his roots and slowly headed down the steps of the platform, while the treants standing with him also began moving, leaving one after another.

On the high platform built of ring-shaped megaliths, only the Elven Twins remained, along with the eternally restless winds of the wasteland blowing around them.

"Impatient, really impatient..." Lelena shook her head, sighed and said, "Humans truly are an impatient species, even when their life form changes like this, there’s not much improvement."

"But it’s precisely this ’impatient’ nature that allows these short-lived creatures to create countless surprises," Fyrna laughed, "Don’t you look forward to such surprises?"

"Well, I suppose so..."

...

At the north slope of the Dark Mountain Range, southwest of Cecil Castle, in the large secret facility "Project 115" hidden in the mountains and deep forests, the main testing site’s cave in the mountainside was brightly lit.

The high-powered magic crystal lamps mounted on the ceiling spread bright light, illuminating countless large and small platforms on the testing site, along with the complex frameworks fixed and connected between the platforms. Numerous devices still in the prototype stage were undergoing tests and adjustments at each platform area, and hundreds of technicians were busying themselves all over the testing site, with engineering vehicles and small patrol cars continuously coming and going along the roads between platforms.

In the central area of the testing site, a special large platform had just completed its adjustments, and Rebecca stepped up the stairs, heading towards the test zone at the center of the platform, followed closely by Gawain who had specially come from Cecil Castle.

"Ancestor, we’ve finally set this fellow up!" Standing in the center of the platform, Rebecca turned joyfully towards her old ancestor, pointing with one hand to the large container and its surrounding auxiliary setups not far away, "The technicians just checked it over, and now its state is excellent~~"

Gawain looked at the clearly somewhat overly excited Rebecca with slight indulgence, then lifted his gaze towards the nearby "experimental unit." In his view, a large hemispherical container was quietly placed in the central base of the test platform, and around the container, various crystal containers, connecting tubes, and neural coupler assemblies were arranged, and at that moment, the cover arrangement of the hemispherical container was not closed, allowing him to clearly see that it was filled with a thin, translucent nutrient solution, with a vast biological organ, resembling a brain, soaking in the solution.

The brain floated leisurely in the solution, even looking somewhat... content.

After watching it for a few seconds, Gawain couldn’t help but mutter, "No matter how many times I look... what Beltira concocted is still so bizarre..."

"Actually it’s not so bad, I was startled when I first saw it too, but after seeing it many times, I feel quite used to it," Rebecca scratched her head, showing a simple and radiant smile on her face, "Moreover, these servobrains are actually quite interesting; the more you interact with them, you might even find them a bit cute—they’re diligent and sensible creatures, whether it’s computational tasks or exercise requests, they obediently comply..."

"I find the concept of brains functioning as computational hosts which suddenly jump out of their slots to engage in exercise itself weird enough..." Gawain couldn’t help but rub his forehead, "But since you all can accept this ’style’, it’s fine then."

Rebecca giggled briefly, then shifted the topic to what she was familiar with: "Once this set of wetware host is debugged, we can proceed to the next step of testing—getting it to coordinate the operation of those new anti-gravity units. According to data from Gran Heavy Industries, servobrains’ efficiency in this aspect is dozens, even hundreds of times that of humans, and we’re certain to resolve the vexing issues we’ve been facing."

"Don’t be in a rush to relax," Gawain, although trusting Rebecca’s adequate reliability in technical matters, couldn’t help but remind her at this moment, "Run several simulation tests first, gradually activate the devices on a small scale—the larger the system, the more cautious operation is required. Your aunt’s already had enough shocks."

"Rest assured, you can rest assured," Rebecca shrank her neck at the mention of "aunt," then nodded repeatedly, "I understand, just like your famous quote, ’Blind confidence is the first step towards destruction’—I’ve memorized it seriously..."

Gawain was unexpectedly astonished to hear this, not even managing to pursue Rebecca’s use of the term "ex-alive": "Famous quote? When did I ever say something like that?"

Rebecca paused: "...What? Isn’t this from you? It’s listed as a must-memorize famous saying in the textbooks..."

Gawain: "That wasn’t what I said—I suspect some scholar filling up a book may have said it for me."

Rebecca: "...?"